Scouting trips

I used to know my way around all the back roads in these parts. The problem is the years slip by. Things change. Some of the dirt roads I used to drive now have good sized trees growing in them and washed out bridges. There are new dirt roads that look like super highways. Heck, some of those dirt roads are no longer dirt but have been paved. 

Thanks to GPS mapping it’s easier than it used to be to drive back roads. Just the other day I was thinking a side road looked like it might connect to another road I was familiar with. Fortunately, I called up the maps on my inreach device. Not only did that road not connect, it wandered off a long long ways before disappearing into a large bog. 

My poking around revealed some interesting surprises. The first is the number of houses that have been built out in the middle of nowhere. The second is how many new dirt roads there are since I was kid. Some areas have been logged heavily. It’s good to know how to get around using fire and logging roads if the main roads are blocked. 

It’s been really interesting to see how my area has changed. The population hasn’t increased much over the years. People are living more spread out. There appear to be more vacation homes too. 

My little scooter has been great for checking things out. After driving around all afternoon I put a bit over $5 of gas in the tank. It’s also good for getting around locked gates. It’s not that I ignore locked gates; sometimes they get locked after I go up the road. While a scooter isn’t exactly a dirt bike, if I go slow it handles just fine. 

-Sixbears

Make Sure You go to Bars

My lovely wife is one of a kind. She has some advice for my solo sailing trip this fall. She wants me to make sure I go bars. Not just any bars, of course, but bars along the waterfront. Now most wives would not encourage their husbands to do that. My lovely wife is not like most women.

Her thinking is that sailors like to have a few drinks, especially after a long day on the water. By going to bars I'll have a chance to talk to others who spend time out on the water. They will have a pretty good idea on what the current conditions are like. If there are uncharted hazards in the waterway, they are going to know about them. Maybe they learned the hard way, but running aground on an unmarked shoal. After a few drinks they will want to talk about it. Bars can be a good source of that valuable commodity, local knowledge.

In my day to day life, I rarely go to bars. Maybe my lovely wife and I will occasionally meet up with friends in a bar. Rarely will I ever go to one alone. If by myself I'm more likely to go to a coffee shop. However, that's probably not where most boaters are going to be. Besides, most coffe shop people tend to stick to themselves. In bars, people have a few drinks and loosen up.

So I guess I'm going to have to budget more for beer. Hey, anything to make my lovely wife more comfortable about my trip.

-Sixbears

All God's Creatures are Lost

But some have sailboats.

One nice bonus about spending more time than we'd planned in the marina is that we've had some time to get to know people better.

Last night my wife was wondering what a sailboat had tied to its deck. The owner came out and was more than happy to answer her questions. Like my lovely wife suspected, the bundle on the deck was his deflated dinghy. My lovely wife got a kick out of that as it was the same area where she had me tie our deflated kayak.

We've been getting a lot of good local knowledge about sailing in this area. For example, we've learned that one of the nearby locks is under construction and is closed except for weekends and a once daily opening during weekdays. That will have some bearing in our future plans.

A lot of people in this marina have been to the Bahamas and they all have nice things to say about it. That's great as I've been trying to convince my lovely wife to sail there. She tells me next year. I'm fine with that as we are getting used to this boat. There are plenty of things to see around Florida yet.

One guy told me about some very remote anchorages in the Bahamas where few people go. It's almost surprising that a place so close to the hustle and bustle of Florida can be deserted. However, once you think about it, it makes sense. Power boats are limited by how much fuel they can carry. Most sailors stick to the tried and true routes where supplies are available. Not that many people deal well with isolation so they seek out places where others gather.

We are all about beautiful natural places, so it's just the sort of adventure we'd like to do. I'm also curious to see if those areas are suitable for emergency bug out locations. Life on the mainland is wacky at the best of times, never mind during a national emergency.

-Sixbears